've interviewed newt gingrich, he often says to me the way it worked with president clinton, when he was the speaker, was that you would be in a room full of advisors and a moment would come, you would sling them all out and it would be you and him, man to man, get it done, compromise, get it done. why is that not happening now, and what advice do you give to barack obama to try and get into that kind of mindset with the republicans? >> that's -- what speaker gingrich said is true but it's not the whole truth. that is, we had one year when virtually nothing got done. i was a real stickler for passing all my budgets on time, and -- but in 2005 we didn't, and i had to veto what they did, and they had to do what they did because that's what they promised the voters they'd do in the '94 elections, and then the citizens decided they agreed with me more than them, they didn't want the government shut down, they just wanted to keep bringing the deficit down. so after the two government shutdowns in late '95 and early '96, then we began this compromise process everybody talks about. there ha